Reply #44: environment, fiscal policy, religion-government separation [View All]

[AJH032]

1. Strong environmental rules are absolutely necessary to preserving life and beauty on this planet. Who says being technologically productive and being environmentally friendly have to be mutually exclusive things? We can be even more productive if we use more environmentally clean energy that is more efficient than what we use now, and the more we use it and standardize it, the cheaper it will be, so the supply-side of the market won't be hurt in the end (Republicans can't seem to grasp this concept).

2. Our government's fiscal policies play a major role and have major effects on our economy, obviously. Forget the spending side for now (which of course is also very important), and just look at revenue and how we allocate taxes. There are several paths to choose. We could put in place taxation policies that encourage more outsourcing of jobs, increase competition among workers (by adding millions of people to the American company's choice of workers), and generate lower wages so we have a depleted consumer-side of the U.S. market, even if prices do go down (if at all, as most of the extra revenue will go into the company's profits, not into lowering the prices unless they need to to stay competetive). Or, we could limit outsourcing and the opposite would happen. Additionally, we could encourage businesses of any size to be more productive by making it more tax-friendly for them to re-invest a large portion of their revenue into their own productivity (ie, hiring more workers, designers, creating better products, encouraging competition), or we could limit corporate taxes and allow profits to build up while everyone else suffers (except maybe the resource market). I'm not advocating we put a cap on profits, because this would encourage companies to be less productive. I'm only encouraging a more graduated corporate tax, so as a company makes more, they pay more (but at no point would they be better off by not making a profit). Okay, this is already too long, because this is a very complicated issue. But I think I've made my point.

3. This one's very simple. Religion out of government. Everyone in the United States should be free to practice whatever religion s/he chooses, so long as they don't disrupt others. This goes for all branches of government, including the SCOTUS.